


People I Will Never Be

by lonelywalker



Category: X-Men (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-19
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonelywalker/pseuds/lonelywalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The devil walks among us in many forms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	People I Will Never Be

_The devil walks among us in many forms_ , Marie’s mother had said, tut-tutting at her daughter’s avoidance of church, or her tendency to hang out with Cody alone in her room. In her Mississippi childhood, terrorism and murder had seemed far too exotic. The real evils in the world were laziness and a lack of good moral fiber.

Marie had done a lot of eye-rolling the summer before the devil entered their home. A casual touch had turned her best friend into a gasping, comatose _thing_ that barely resembled the laughing boy she had known since kindergarten. But it was no allergic reaction that had done it. It had been something within her – something dark, and something wrong. Her hands and face had been red and raw the night they all waited in hospital corridors, hoping for news. But even hospital industrial cleansers couldn’t drive it away. The darkness was inside her, rooted to her core. When they looked at her, they all saw what she had become.

She had disappeared before anyone knew for certain, when she was least likely to be missed. The results didn’t matter. She could have killed him and, if he survived, she knew she would bring death too close to him again.

It was impossible to run from the devil, but, somehow, it seemed possible to run from herself.

***

Bobby came in a little before midnight, the day after Christmas. The bar was busy with patrons conducting annual get-togethers, or ducking out of awkward family situations at home. Plastic holly and mistletoe still hung from every edge and corner, although the sticky tape was gradually peeling away, affected by the draft from the heaters. Outside it had been snowing, and the festivity of the ice-covered roads had worn off quickly. By the time Marie noticed the new customer, he had already ordered a beer, and hunkered down at a rickety table by the far wall. He was alone. He didn’t seem to be looking for anyone. Marie was certain that he knew she was there.

She kept out of his line of sight, and, between orders, glanced over at him. He seemed older, although it had only been a few months since she had last seen him. But, then, he was a soldier now. He was drinking beer from the bottle with the sort of weary attitude she had seen in Logan. She wondered what he might be trying to forget.

Maybe they _needed_ her. The thought was a sudden rush of hope. Maybe Bobby had been sent to get her back. Maybe she was useful even without her powers. Maybe… A patron angrily tapping his empty glass on the bar brought her back to reality. She hadn’t left because she had lost her powers. She had left because she just couldn’t be that person anymore, that girl Bobby Drake wanted her to be.

“Hi Bobby,” she said with a smile as she slid into the seat opposite him, wiping her hands off with one of the rags from behind the bar. A month in the job, and she was still spilling drinks over her fingers. She supposed they kept her on for her winning personality.

He met her eyes, and there was no smile. “The beer’s warm,” he said dully.

For a moment she was afraid that he didn’t recognize her or, worse, didn’t remember her. He was an X-Man now, after all. Being a soldier brought violence with it: concussions, brain damage, post-traumatic stress. And surely there could be a mutant out there with the power to erase memories? Marie thought, a little guiltily, that any one of these explanations was better than the far more likely idea that he simply didn’t want to talk to her.

As usual, she laughed it off. “Yeah. Ice all around us and we can’t get the fridge to work. Figures, right?”

Bobby frowned at her, and took another gulp of beer. She shifted in the chair, uncomfortable, remembering a group of them swigging sodas under the shade of trees by the basketball court: Peter sketching birds, John telling an extravagantly rude joke and blowing the punchline, Bobby holding her gloved hand and laughing. He had breathed cold air into her drink for her, frosting the glass, and she had thought that it was almost a kiss, one step removed.

Bobby Drake was the _last_ person who should be complaining about warm beer.

“Did you…” Marie looked around and pulled her chair closer to the table. “Did you lose your powers? Did you take the cure?” _Did you do it for me?_

He sounded bitter when he laughed. “Take it? No. I would never do that. They shot me with it. I’d have preferred to take a bullet.”

Marie reached out for his hand. “At least you’re alive. Life isn’t all about powers.”

“Well my life is,” Bobby snapped. “It’s who I am. I can’t just shrug them off like an old sweater and run away to Alaska.” His gaze lifted to survey the bar. “Is this your life now? Pouring drinks and being hit on by old truckers? It would’ve been better if you’d died at Ellis Island. At least you’d have been a hero. Maybe your life would’ve meant something.”

Marie pulled her hand back. “Now you’re just trying to hurt me,” she whispered sharply. “I know you’re upset, Bobby, but don’t take it out on me. I can’t believe you tracked me down and came all the way here just to be petty.”

He put down the bottle with a thud. “I came all the way here to make you a hero again. You still have a way out, Rogue. You can still make a difference.”

“In the X-Men? I don’t think so.” They’ve gone through this argument before. “The Professor’s dead. Mr. Summers and Ms. Grey too. Even if I had my powers, Magneto isn’t out there anymore. The cops can deal with mutant problems. We need to get on with our lives. What happened to college, Bobby? What happened to your plans?”

“I’m not that kid anymore,” he said. “Not sure I ever was. There are more important things than goofing off in a frat house for four years. There’s still a war to be won.”

Around them, the bar manager was calling for last orders. Rogue shook her head. “War? Who with? There’s no Brotherhood. Senator Kelly died. There’s a mutant at the UN! It’s not like we’re fighting to survive anymore.”

Yellow eyes flashed, and Bobby’s voice was suddenly distorted, atonal, and just a little feminine. “You have no idea,” he said.

Marie ran like the devil himself was after her.

***

The next night, it was a lithe, blonde woman who sat in Bobby’s chair, nursing an orange juice as she studied a newspaper. She occasionally adjusted her glasses, the better to dispense withering glances to the truckers who came too close. Marie could see her speaking to the men who were more persistent. Whatever she said, each and every man soon retreated back to the bar. After a while, the woman was left in peace. Marie finished wiping glasses, and went over to talk.

The previous night, she had spent an hour hiding behind a snowdrift, fearful that her chattering teeth and thumping heart would give her away. She had been nothing more than a victim – a scared kid with no defensive skills, and no one to call. Not even Logan, this time.

At the house where she rented a room from a retired couple, she had half expected to find bodies rather than people waiting for her. But they were breathing and asleep when she had glanced into their room, and dinner had been waiting for her in the microwave. She had chewed on lukewarm macaroni and stared at her fingers as if attempting to find answers there.

“What happened to you?” she asked, voice as brave as she could make it. “They said you’d been cured.”

Mystique gave her the sort of smile an elementary school teacher might cultivate for her students. “Is that what they say?”

Even though the tone was light, and had none of Erik Lehnsherr’s too-smooth accent, Marie could only hear Magneto’s voice. “And what about…” She choked on her own words. “What about Magneto?”

“What about him?”

A sore spot? Marie swallowed and pressed on. “He’s got his powers back too?”

“I would assume so.” Her tone was icy. She turned a page of the newspaper. “Erik is no longer my concern.”

“Oh.” Marie frowned, unsure whether this new information made Mystique more or less of a threat. “But I thought… Don’t you love him?”

Maybe she had been reading too much into it – the casual touches, the old jokes, the intimate knowledge of each other that had given Marie a glimmer of hope during the time they had imprisoned her. Surely people who could feel, and love, couldn’t do her harm?

“Don’t you love him?” Mystique echoed, her voice Bobby’s, casual and familiar. It made Marie shudder. Mystique smiled at her discomfort. “They all leave in the end, even if they try. They will all desert you.”

Marie felt indignant. “I have friends. Family. I’m not a _terrorist_.”

Mystique pushed the paper aside. “When I was born, my father tried to drown me like a kitten in a bag. My foster parents loved me for a while, until they realized that I couldn’t be cured. Until they realized what I could do. What I _was_.” She smiled. “Even people kind enough to care for a little blue girl with scales will turn you away in the end. When they find out that it’s not just a skin condition – that it’s something deep inside you.”

Her fingers reached out for Marie’s. Marie was too out-of-practice to pull them away in time. “How long has it been, since you last touched someone? Since you last kissed someone?”

The tingling was faint but familiarly itchy and irritating – the touch of nettles on bare flesh, beginning as a tingle, and then… Marie wrenched her hand away, pushing her chair back so hard that it almost topped over. A few patrons turned to see what had happened.

“Do you see?” Mystique asked, the faint lesions on her face fading away as Marie’s powers ceased to affect her. “You have the devil inside you.”

***

The sun was melting the fringes of snow from the road as Marie waited, bag at her feet. The gloves felt too restrictive after so long. She had found them stashed at the bottom of the pack she had brought from Xavier’s, underneath the other clothes, and the book or two Ms. Grey had loaned her. She had left Bobby the photographs. He probably needed to remember more than she did.

She thought about calling someone before she left the house: Bobby, Logan, even her Mom. But those were wounds it was unwise to scratch.

Mystique drove a BMW convertible, which was insanity in Alaska, but after a few miles Marie started to enjoy herself. The car was probably stolen, but Mystique seemed to have no fear of the highway patrol.

“We’re like Thelma and Louise,” Marie said, settling into her seat as the road unfolded before them.

Mystique smiled. “We’re like no one else in the world.”


End file.
